1. Technical Field
The invention relates to aircraft safety equipment and more particularly to an apparatus and method for increasing flight crew situational awareness during landing.
2. Related Art
Landing is one of the most demanding tasks in flying. During the landing process, the aircraft must be brought to a safe and complete stop. To perform the landing properly, the aircraft must approach the runway within certain attitude, track, speed, and rate of descent limits. An approach outside of these limits can result in a “hard” landing, overrunning the runway end, or otherwise contacting the runway surface in an uncontrolled manner. Any one of these events has the potential to cause severe damage to the aircraft and may additionally result in passenger injuries or fatalities.
Landing too fast and landing too far down a runway may contribute to runway overrun accidents. Pilots are trained to monitor these conditions during the approach, and to initiate a go-around maneuver if a safe landing is not assured. The effectiveness of pilot training depends, however, on the skill and judgment of the pilot in recognizing a possible runway overrun condition, and in executing the appropriate response. Pilots with varying levels of skill are therefore likely to respond differently to the same scenario.
In most landing and departure situations, the pilot's vision is the sole data source for estimating runway position information. Even with existing high standards for pilot eyesight, some variation in acuity will occur as the pilot's physical condition, alertness, and state of rest vary. If the pilot's vision is the sole source of data used to determine whether a go-around or aborted takeoff is necessary, then variations in visual acuity, distractions or poor visibility may reduce the quality of the data used in the pilot's decision. In addition, a pilot may fly for years without experiencing a runway overrun, and the pilot may be slow to recognize a problem during landing.
Aircraft safety can be improved by mitigating the effects of differing pilot skill levels and situational awareness during the landing phase of flight.